Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways (2014) s01e01 Episode Script

Chicago

20 years.
We've been doing this for
exactly 20 years.
October 17, 1994,
I walked into a studio in Seattle
and recorded
a bunch of songs by myself.
These songs eventually became
the Foo Fighters.
Over the last 20 years,
we've been all over the world,
but it's always a day here,
a day there.
We never really get a chance to
get a feel for the places that we're in,
or what they have to offer.
So, for our 20th anniversary,
we decided to do something to make
the creative process new again,
something
we've never done before.
This all started with one idea:
that the environment
in which you make a record
ultimately influences
the end result.
Not just the studio,
but the people and the history.
When I listen to our records,
I remember everything
about the experience.
It's like I hear memories.
I feel like if everyone knew more
about the people and the places
where this music is made,
they would feel
more connected to it.
So we set out looking for inspiration
from all of these great cities.
We wanted to talk to musicians,
to producers,
to studio owners,
and find out what inspires them.
Because it all comes from
somewhere.
I got to Chicago from my--
If I'd have known then what I
know now
Well, Chicago is a real hub.
Large, but very working-class,
rougher around the edges.
I was a kid of the times of Beatles,
the Stones, falling in love with the blues,
and all my blues heroes
are from here in Chicago.
The middle of the country;
midway, just philosophically,
between New York and California;
but there's a tempo to it.
Chicago has always been a
Mecca for music of all sorts.
Well, it started with Muddy.
Muddy Waters was our
Beatles or Rolling Stones.
Muddy was the magnet,
and one by one, they came to Chicago.
I went to Chicago,
September 25, 1957.
That's when the season had changed,
and birds,
they was getting the hell
out of there as well,
and I'm coming this way.
And I look up and I said,
"The birds got more damn sense
than I got."
You know, they going where
the weather suits their clothes, you know?
I was a New Orleans boy, you know,
picking cotton on the farm.
- Was your family musical?
- No!
I didn't know what a radio was
until I was about 16-17 years old.
I do know the story,
and I've heard it from other people;
when they couldn't afford a guitar,
they strung a nail up
and just, you know
I was running around with
rubber bands,
put 'em up to my ear,
long as I could hear something.
I could take a button on a string,
make it go zoo-zoo,
like a Zulu or something like that.
And they used to look at me and say,
"I don't know where you get it from."
Everything that Buddy adds is
like nobody else would play.
I was afraid of him
when I met him.
I don't want to say he was mean,
but he played a mean guitar.
He's a very sweet guy,
but his playing is so intense
that it sounds mean.
Nobody I know in the blues circles
ever played like that.
You go way, way back,
after black emancipation,
a lot of those guys
walked out of Mississippi.
Chicago was
the great stopping spot.
You cross that river, and, okay,
I'm gonna lay my burden down.
Chicago had this mix of immigrants:
Poland, Ireland, Italy
And then a million
people from the South.
All these immigrants
came to Chicago for one thing.
It wasn't to make music;
it was to make money.
Plantation style
didn't work anymore.
Put a loud amp and a loud drum
in a small location
and people would get moving
and grinding.
The first blues was really
live music to pick up women.
Cities are changed
by the people that go there,
but then the cities
change them as well.
The music that Muddy Waters
recorded for the Library of Congress
on Stovall's Plantation
is very different from the blues
that he made in Chicago
when he settled there.
He was fundamentally
changed by that.
Muddy and my father
were good friends.
First time I met him,
Cadillac pulls up, a guy walks out,
I'm in the front yard,
he's got a bright green suit
I mean, glowing green.
I look down at his shoes,
and they had cow-skin, the hair of cow,
and he had this really high,
big hair.
And he said, "You must be young Chess;
your papa here?"
That was my first meeting
with Muddy Waters.
I was walking down 47th Street one day,
and I told a guy
He said, "Can you play?"
I said, "Yeah, I'll play
if you buy me a hamburger."
He said, "Man, you know if you
feed a dog he won't hunt."
He took me by the hand like a little kid,
and he took me to
this famous blues club at that time
in Chicago called 708 Club.
And I went up,
and I was doing a Bobby Bland tune
called Further On Up the Road.
And the owner was
on his way out the door;
he said, "I don't know
who the hell he is, but hire him."
When I walked outside the door,
somebody said, bam,
"I heard you can play the guitar.
I'm Muddy Waters.
I heard you was hungry."
I said, "Not if you're Muddy
Waters."
And from that until he died,
we was the best friends.
When I went to Chicago,
you know, I put it like this:
I was looking for a dime
and I found a quarter.
I don't have any personal
history with Chicago.
I love Chicago;
the girls are really hot
and the weather fucking sucks.
What's up?
Nate, bass in here.
- You, drums in here.
- Yeah.
- Rad!
- It's fucking bitchin'.
- It's sick!
- Yeah.
I think that there's
something about a city
that influences the way
people play music in that city.
It used to be that just throwing
your gear in a van was an adventure,
but after 20 years,
you look for ways
to change the process
and make it more of a challenge.
- So what are we doing?
- Just walk and talk!
Steve Albini.
He's one of the world's greatest
producer recording engineers.
Ta-dah.
Steve's reputation is just
that he's a cynical prick.
I don't see any real triumph
in selling a record
to someone
who won't appreciate it.
He had that personality that was
sort of "take it or leave it."
It's very clear about what he
likes and what he doesn't like.
When a band is thrust at me
and wiggled in front of me
like a severed head,
it makes me hate them.
He thought that his opinion was fact.
Always.
All the pomp and circumstance
that surrounds music
and rock stars
could give less than a shit about.
I'm sure that everybody in town
wanted to kick that guy's ass at least once.
The music we make is intended
for a select audience, you know?
People who will appreciate it
and other people shouldn't try.
Stop.
He makes great records.
I don't know how.
Go to Chicago,
get to Steve's house.
There's a bunch of bands that
he's done all these famous records for.
As a drummer,
recording with Steve was a huge deal.
That is one of my life's
greatest gifts.
I got to record with Steve Albini
and listen back
and hear his drum sound
on my drums.
This is the control room.
Inside here is where all the
technical stuff goes on.
This is a Neo-tech recording console
made by the Neo-tech company.
A Chicago company.
We bought this building in
December of 1995.
Carpentry and construction was
done by a crew that we assembled,
a very small number
of actual professional tradesmen.
Like this
This room is a pretty good example.
Some of the adobe was laid
by professional masons
and you can see that they have
The grout joints are
very even and very regular.
And then some of it was laid
by my punk rock friends
possibly after
a three martini lunch.
- And so
- That maybe that area there.
This room is really cool.
This is the Kentucky room.
Beneath this floor,
there's another room exactly the same shape.
As we've separated
the floor from the wall,
which allows us to couple the air volume
in those two rooms together
that gives you much better
and linearity and low frequencies
because you have a larger air
volume.
- The larger the air volume
- He's brilliant.
- the longer a wave you can process.
- So, he sort of affords
that reputation
of being a cynical prick.
There's a whole other studio
on the other side of that wall,
which you're not going to
get to see
because fuck you guys.
We're kind of spoiled
coming to Steve's studio.
It's a really nice studio.
It's kind of like Chicago.
Really basic,
but the rooms sound great.
The gear is good
and there's space.
I love Chicago.
This is the first place I ever
played a professional gig.
But I don't care about the blues,
really.
When I think of Chicago,
I think of Cheap Trick.
That's about as deep as I go.
You'd always read the
back of records and I saw that
Cheap Trick recorded at
Pumpkin Studios.
So, I would go over there
and just wait.
And this one time this band
starts coming out.
I'm like, oh, fuck, oh, oh.
Oh!
Oh, shit, it's Styx.
We were waiting for Cheap Trick.
This next one is the first song
on our new album.
If you listen to Rick
Nielsen's playing,
you can hear the roots of blues
and rock and roll,
but there's also an evolution
into the world of punk rock.
You know, in the '60s,
believe it or not, I was a blues guy.
I mean, I loved the blues stuff
and I didn't even know who they were,
but I liked the feel of it.
I got my first record deal
when I was in high school.
We were called the Grim Reapers,
but the record company changed
our name to Fuse.
Later on,
I was the guitar player
with Bo Diddly, Del Shannon,
Freddy Cannon, The Shirelles,
Chuck Berry.
He started playing at such an
early age with so many different people
that he's very much
a blues based rock and roll guitarist.
There's something wonderfully
Midwest about Cheap Trick.
My first concert was
Cheap Trick.
Rick Nielsen flicking out the
picks.
I have Cheap Trick picks
still at home
and they had that Beatles
pop sensibility.
It's a little more dangerous.
It was a little bit more,
you know, flick of the nose.
You have to come from somewhere.
And our roots were Chicago-based.
So, you know,
any influence was drawn from here.
I moved to Chicago to go to college
at Northwestern University.
I'm originally from Missoula,
Montana.
I studied journalism.
I made it all the way through,
but I've never worked as a journalist.
One of the reasons I was excited
about coming to Chicago
was I assumed that there'd be
a music scene here
that I could get involved in.
It was kind of scary to be
a punk rocker in Chicago back then.
You'd walk down the street with
your leather jacket on and your short hair
and the heavy metal people
felt this was their doom.
They'd say,
"What the fuck are you doing, you fags?
We'll kick your ass you punk
rockers."
There was no scene in Chicago.
How can there not be anything
happening in a city this big?
There was a rag tag group of
people who were into punk music,
but there really wasn't really
an infrastructure.
I was giving people cassettes
of my music that I'd recorded
and seeing if anybody was interested
and introducing myself.
Steve Albini was this kid who
hung around.
He was annoying.
And that's
how I met Naked Raygun.
Naked Raygun was
the first band that I saw
where they were
totally content to just be
the freaks and weirdos
that they were naturally.
We were very exciting on stage.
We did a lot of screaming,
a lot of crashing into stuff.
I was a mess back then.
I had a lot of anger and the
music was the outlet for that.
Who came up with the name?
It was a play on the Sex Pistols.
Sex, Naked. Raygun, Pistols.
Man, I hated that name.
All's we'd ever get was
Naked Regan?
By far, my favourite band.
If someone was playing
punk rock music in the early '80s,
they weren't doing it to get the
attention of girls.
Girls weren't listening
to punk rock.
They were listening to
Duran Duran or whatever.
No one got famous
playing punk rock.
You were doing it
'cause you had to.
One, two, fuck you!
I really wanted to be
in a band.
It was almost unbearable
that I wasn't in a band.
I started doing recordings
on my own.
I had made a demo
and I gave it to Jeff Pezzati
at a Naked Raygun show.
I said to Steve, "I will gladly
play something in your band.
I can play bass."
And I was like, fuck me.
This is like the best thing
that's ever happened.
I went over to the house
where Jeff lived,
basically every band in Chicago
practiced in the basement.
Santiago shared
a coach house with us.
He heard us playing.
The rehearsal space was
right below my bedroom.
I wanted to watch a football game.
He had a little black and
white television.
He couldn't hear the football
game.
They were making a racket.
Big Black would be lease
breaking music.
You want to break your lease?
You play Big Black really loud
at 3:00 in the morning.
You're out of your lease.
He went down to the basement
and put on his guitar and said
Would you guys mind if I
joined?
My favourite guitar player in
the world was now in my band
because I had prevented him from
watching a football game.
That's how I got the band together,
was by irritating Santiago.
Steve Albini was Big Black
and the cover of the first album.
One side they were dressed up
like Cheap Trick,
and the flip side they were dressed up
as the German band Kraftwerk.
Steve definitely has a
strong musical identity.
Whatever he does
sounds like no one else.
I don't think Steve really cares
what people think about him.
I was worried about
the first song we were tracking
because it's a complex song.
For us, it's a new feel.
It's kind of groovy.
And we're not really like the
groovy band.
It gets a little fucking like '70s porno music
in the middle and I love it.
It's totally shaft.
It's totally shaft.
The way that we're
recording this record
logistically we need to do a
song a week.
So, usually when you
make a record
you do all the drums up front
for the whole record
and that takes weeks usually.
Then you do all the bass tracks.
Then you do all the guitars.
So, you know,
for me as a guitar player,
we start a record,
I might not do anything for a month.
Hearing it in context, seems like
it could be something more special,
- you know what I mean?
- Right.
I think that the tone is cool,
just the sound is cool.
I think you're cool.
We're all in the studio
almost the entire time.
You're experiencing the process
with your band mates.
It just makes it feel more of like a,
you know, a team effort,
I think,
when you do it this way.
- That's pretty good.
- Close. Let's hear it.
Maybe instead of a raa-ir,
could you click in with
a feedback, like, ah!
I also want to kind of hear
the jack go
After that one, two,
three, four.
Just make sure you're in on
that second time around.
One more. Let's do one more.
We can save that one.
- Let's save that one.
- Do it again! Do it again!
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three.
That was fuckin' bad ass.
- You know what I'm dreading right now?
- Live?
The idea of having to
play this on television.
1964 is when I arrived
in Chicago.
I had heard about this place,
the old Jewish neighbourhood.
It was called a Jew town
then but it's Maxwell Street.
Chicago was really the epicenter
of people with tin cans
to get spare change for playin' blues.
A lot of the blues stuff that came out,
you never heard that stuff on the radio.
You could count the record
companies back then that would,
I guess would even
listen to blues.
My father was
an immigrant from Poland.
In 1947, he went to work for a
label called Aristocrat.
They had Muddy Waters
signed to them.
And in 1950, he bought out the partners
and started Chess Records.
Chess brothers, they just
took a chance on it and it exploded.
We bring you
a gentleman by the name of Little Walter.
Just like all those other guys,
Buddy was a young hot guitar player.
Everyone said, this boy can play,
this boy can play.
They started using him in sessions,
next thing, record him.
When I first went into
Chess they say well,
Buddy Guy is not a stage name,
you got to be Buddy King.
I said wait a minute now,
I know BB King.
Matter of fact, everybody back then,
jazz, blues,
whatever kind of musician you
was you was MF.
- You know what that is, right?
- MF.
Yeah. You want me to tell you
what it is?
That is motherfucker.
It doesn't mean what it says.
It's not about fucking your mother,
it's just a slang expression, you know.
So when I got to Chess,
they didn't say good morning Buddy,
but good morning motherfucker,
I was about to get offended.
That was about going down together.
You don't fuck up,
you idiot motherfucker.
I was all about laughing together,
becoming one.
Do you know three weeks later
when you said hey motherfucker,
I said what,
because everybody was doing it.
I only went to Chess Studios
once in my life.
It was probably '68, '69.
I said to Mitchell,
I need to remember this.
This is part of something that's really important,
you know, in our heritage.
Years later we did a show that
was called Blues Summit in Chicago
and that became Soundstage.
One of the most fun memories
I have is when I asked those guys
if they would play on the show
with me.
At that time, it was Buddy
Guy and Junior Wells' band.
Mr. Buddy Guy!
It was really hot in the studio
and Buddy had this giant big
checked wool maxi-coat
with a turtleneck on.
They came in dressed as Superfly
and did not change the whole time
even though it was so hot.
You know, that's commitment.
One summer
when I was about 13 years old,
we took a family vacation up here to Chicago
to visit our relatives.
They lived in this beautiful house
that was just down the street from the lake.
It was marble and staircases and
it had a fountain in the living room.
We rang the doorbell,
Aunt Sherry opened the door,
hugs and kisses and then says,
Tracey, they're here.
And Tracey comes down the steps,
she has bondage pants,
Doc Martin boots, her head is shaved.
She's a punk rocker.
Who could persuade a kid to
act like that?
Maybe the greatest persuader there is:
Music.
I'd only seen that on television shows
like Quincy or Chips.
When you see that in real life,
I mean, it's like seeing a UFO or Bigfoot.
I remember coming downstairs like,
alright,
you know, I'm all punk now, you know,
and you guys being
Oh my God.
I met your cousin Tracey
when I was 9.
I was 10 years old when we
started that band.
Punk rock was ours.
Punk rock was our scene
even though we were so fucking young.
The first guest today got
together and formed a band,
four young folks from Evanston.
They call their group Verboten.
They're going to play an original song
they wrote called My Opinion.
And now here they are,
Verboten.
It was Jason, Chris and Zach
and all three were younger than I was.
I was 14, you know.
I just believed that we could do whatever.
Like, at one point I was like
well let's just summer tour at one point
and Jason says like, my son's 10.
I'd like him to finish 5th grade!
Now, what do you remember
about our family coming to your place?
I remember
I was going out that night.
I was meeting my friends.
I was probably meeting my boyfriend
and I remember thinking
I was going to have to take you guys.
And I remember looking
at you two and me being like,
oh man, they are going to
get their ass kicked.
We took the 'L' from Evanston
into Chicago to a show.
And I think you guys were
getting kind of nervous
once we were on the train
and everything,
excited but also kind of like,
oh my god, what's going to happen?
I remember being kind of nervous
walking up to Cubby Bear
and seeing a bunch of punk rockers,
like, oh my god, I'm dead,
I'm fuckin' dead.
The Cubby Bear is across the street
from Wrigley Field where The Cubs play.
The Cubs only played in the
daytime back then.
At night it was just dead.
Nobody would there, just bums.
You might be tempted to think
that the Cubby Bear caters
exclusively to
the Chicago sports fan
but every once in a while this place
pulls a real chameleon act
and changes its colours from Cub blue
to punked-out purple.
This place is gaining a lot of fans,
especially under-aged people.
There had been a punk club
called La Mere Vipere.
But it burned down.
There was a kind of a spate of
clubs that tried to open.
There was a club called C.O.D.
that had burned down suspiciously.
Misfits, I think that place
burned down.
A club called Ann Arkee's.
If I'm not mistaken,
the owner of that club was found
beaten to death with a microphone
rammed up his ass.
If you had a band playing original music
there was no place to play.
The scene was probably 90 people
and you saw 60 of them each night.
Including band members.
So I thought,
let's try to build a scene.
The Cubby Bear offered to give us
any weekend night that we wanted,
so I said we'll do it if you let us
do an under-age show.
Let's see if we can bring some
more kids into the scene.
Cubby Bear was the first real
show I played.
I was 11 or something.
I'll never forget the first time
my dad and I pull up
in front of Cubby Bear
and a drug deal was going down.
And cops came in and busted
the kids.
And we just sat in the car
and waited
'cause we weren't going to get out
while that was happening.
Now I remember thinking,
'This is fucking great.'
Naked Raygun at the Cubby Bear
was my first live music experience.
My stomach was up against the stage
and the singer was,
like, on top of my head.
Right there. Right.
People diving all over the place,
it was loud as fuck
and it was out of tune
and there was spit.
Well, that's what made it
so exciting.
I was just a kid with an Izod.
It just turned my world
upside down.
I loved how it was dark and fast,
It's like, wait a minute.
That's catchy, that's melodic.
They had a great combination of
energy and piss & vinegar,
but beauty kind of buried in there.
For me, that night changed
everything I knew about music.
Just like, 'oh my god.'
- 'Why can't we do this?
- 'ls this happening where I live?'
'Why can't I do this?'
Wow, and Tracy
took care of her records.
Yeah.
Pull it out.
Yellow vinyl!
I mean, really?
This was my favourite part about
the whole punk scene
was you got the lyrics
to all the bands.
When you first showed me
your record collection
They all had this.
They all had this and it
looked like it was so homemade.
When I first started buying
underground punk rock records,
I would see these addresses
and I'd write to them,
- and then, like, become pen pals.
- They'd write back, right. Right.
And like, I would send them
flyers from DC
and they would send stuff from
wherever they were from.
So this was the kind of record that
you would buy at Record Exchange or Wax Trax?
Oh yeah.
That's if I was going to show off,
I'd take you to Wax Trax.
And it was like a two-story
record store.
I know I took you there.
That was the place.
Wax Trax! Records,
they were critical
Critical to building the
underground scene.
Jim Nash and Danny,
the two partners that ran the store,
they had very strong personalities,
very large international group of friends.
So they had tendrils out into the club music scene
all around the world.
Danny was my dad's partner.
I think they were together for
27 years.
What they created is pretty
fucking amazing.
Whenever you went in there,
they always had some great record playing.
Even the record stores where
you could get punk rock records,
they didn't play the punk rock.
You never know who might walk in
and be offended by it.
They didn't give a fuck
at Wax Trax Records.
No longer going into record stores
and being called an idiot for your record choice.
It's a little sad.
There's a trial by fire of being, like,
"Uh, I'd like to buy this
Siouxsie & The Banshees record."
"Oh, really,
you like this lame crap?
You ever heard of Suicide?"
"Yeah, I want to get that too."
That day I bought Naked
Raygun's Flammable Solid 7-inch,
it instantly became the most
important thing in my entire life.
They've really changed music
here.
They influenced a lot of people.
Gave a lot of people hope
and an outlet
and a whole new feel for,
you know, creating.
That'll do.
It's Rick Nielsen,
the guy with the hat.
Hey Rick, do you want to
play baritone on this song?
- Well, I can, yeah.
- Okay.
But you know,
you guys got ample people here.
No, we don't have enough guitar players.
Well, there's a part
where it gets really heavy
with these big chords.
We could just mic you.
It would be great if you did
that on a baritone.
Alright.
So I better learn it then.
Go teach the guitar player
from Cheap Trick how to play something.
- 'No, you do it like this.'
- Try harder.
You know, I gave a few people lessons,
and this is me giving lessons.
"Why can't you just fucking do it?!
God, just do it!"
So it's, 1, 2, 3, 4:
Stop.
Every time.
That breath.
- I I'm nervous.
- There you go.
I got a metal chill!
When I first joined Foo Fighters,
we played Chicago.
I think it was Halloween
and we dressed up as Cheap Trick.
You know,
I got to be Rick Nielsen.
So fast forward and
Rick Nielsen's hanging out.
He's in the studio with us and
playing on our song.
Like, that's a pretty surreal
experience.
- Whoo!
- Sound good.
Good job, Rick.
We got Rick Nielsen on our record!
Sound bad-ass.
- Does that mean good?
- Yes.
It sounds like that hat.
It sounds like that hat looks.
You know,
this entire project is a challenge,
but even more so when you enter
a legendary studio like Electrical Audio.
There's a weight on your shoulders
that is the responsibility
to do something worthwhile.
I had worked on other bands
that were
sort of attracting a lot of attention,
were You know,
had "hit records" in finger
quotes and that kind of stuff.
But Nirvana was the biggest band
I mean, they're the biggest band that
I will ever work on, is Nirvana, clearly.
Um my
In the beginning of the '90s,
there were these sort of
tendrils of rumor going out
that I had been asked to work
on the new Nirvana album.
And I had had no interaction
with the band whatsoever at that point.
But I remember I had gotten a
couple of drunken phone calls
like, you know, in the middle of the night,
the phone rings
and it's some impaired person
droning about records
but I didn't know that I was talking
to Kurt Cobain from Nirvana at that point.
One of the concerns from
everybody was that
they wanted to prevent a relapse
into abuse on Kurt's part.
So I actually had the idea
of doing the record out in the woods.
Do it, Manny!
My name's Dave,
I'm the drummer of Nirvana.
Walked in there with
these really noisy dark songs.
We recorded them in about a week
with Steve Albini's legendary,
infamous, signature sound.
I was just knocked out
by how great everything sounded.
The record was really powerful
and really captured the
sensation of
hearing the band play.
It goes too far to say that
it was emotional,
but it was a striking moment
when we were
listening to playback.
When we came back
from In Utero,
the first thing the record company said
after hearing it was,
"You're joking, right?
This is the follow-up to Nevermind?"
And I think that was
the reaction we were looking for.
The session I did with Nirvana
was conducted under essentially the same terms
that I'd do any session with any band,
then or now.
We'll figure out how much it's worth
to do the session, you pay me,
and Bob's your uncle.
Within the music industry,
my business practices are
somewhat unusual.
Normally, bands would be paying a royalty
to their producer/engineer or whatever.
From an ethical standpoint,
I think it's an untenable position
for me to say to a band that
I'm going to work for you for a couple of weeks,
and then for the rest of your fucking lives
you're going to pay me a tribute.
Steve is such a righteous dude
that he honestly feels that
the band deserves all the goods for the record,
music they make.
And the guy recording it is just
documenting it.
Very righteous, but to a fault.
If I spend a certain amount
of time on a record,
and I'm paid for the time that I work,
then I'm content.
I just don't see any reason to extend
the band's obligation to me beyond that.
That's an unusual position
within the music industry.
Totally normal if you're a
fucking plumber or a carpenter.
You know, you spend X number of hours
working on a house, you get paid for your time.
You know, 'Oh, look, the house
is still standing in 20 years.
Maybe I should get a little
bonus for that, uh?'
You know what he's leaving on
the table more than anybody.
I can only imagine what
Steve Albini could have made had
he taken points on that record,
but rather he decided to be paid
like a plumber.
A fucking hot-shit plumber,
but a plumber.
My monthly nut on this place
is about 30 grand,
meaning come hell or high water,
I have to make $1000 every day.
I've gone broke
a couple of times.
I've sold my house and I've had to
sell off a bunch of guitars.
There was a very glorious period
of about six months or eight months
where I didn't owe
anybody a fucking penny.
Now I'm up to my balls in debt again,
but, you know.
Playing cards is a pastime of mine,
but it is also a second income,
and there have been
times when I've been
able to pay the salaries
of the people that work here
because I had a good week
playing cards.
Owning a studio is much more gambling
than I do when I'm playing cards.
I love him, Steve Albini.
He's one of the most important
influences on me.
As a punk rock kid
I went to one studio in Brooklyn
where someone told me that
the way we wanted to record
wouldn't work
and the way I was playing was wrong.
I wrote Steve a letter from an
address I got somewhere
and I said, "Hi, I'd like to
build a recording studio
and I don't know how to do it."
Just proceeded to send me letters
and drawings and facts,
details on how to install the windows.
When I wrote him a letter,
he sent me designs on how to build a studio!
I was a kid!
Like, that's not a dick.
That changed my life.
It's actually since been
a real guide to me
of like genuine
generosity to other people.
That was the first of many
studios that I've built.
It's really nice that now in
Steve's world there is some grey.
In the old days
it was just black and white.
He would never use words
like love or anything like that.
And now he'll use that word
in conversation.
Time has been kind to Steve,
as his elbows rounded out.
I'm very pleased we were able to make
a studio that has survived as a resource
for all the people in the music scene
that I consider my brothers.
We all started listening to
punk rock together.
And I think in a strange way
punk rock music was
that generation's folk music
because it was so easy to play and they
were sort of talking about what
was going on around them.
It spoke to us.
When I first started playing punk rock
I had no commercial aspiration at all
because that would have been
completely ridiculous.
There was no way anyone was
gonna pay to listen to this type of music.
When you listen to the Blues,
it's so real
it's hard to imagine that it's for sale.
Muddy Waters, Harlem Wolf,
Buddy Guy;
all these guys had legendary stories,
you know.
They're probably all true.
You really did live in the
shadow
of Muddy and these guys
for an awful long time.
Now Buddy Guy is the last of
the living legends.
He's the survivor.
The Kennedy
Center Honors in Tribute to Buddy Guy
Ladies and gentlemen, 2008
Kennedy Center honoree Morgan Freeman.
Buddy Guy, here's what you did.
You found a new music
that no one ever heard before.
And you made a bridge
from Roots to Rock and Roll.
Your Blues brought us together.
You know what I think?
I think that's
something to sing about.
Buddy Guy's story is so
unbelievable.
A young boy making instruments
from buttons and strings
becoming a Blues legend.
One thing I realized in
talking with all these people
is that we've made something
from nothing.
It's that fire or that inspiration
that moves you through life.
This is the first song we're
making for the album.
It'll be the first song on the record.
And it's all coming to me
through these people.
It's important to have this
history be living.
They really changed music here.
They were some of the best shows
I've seen in my life.
Every album in here gave you power
and strength and like, yeah.
We're still doing it.
We're still here, still making music.
We're all in this one big
cultural fight together.
Don't be intimidated by your heroes.
Be inspired by them.
My parents told me,
"Whatever you do, son,
don't be the best in town.
Just be the best until the best come around."
- Ha! That's a good one.
- Yeah.
There's a line, a story.
This is a musical map.
You can tie all of these people
and places together with these sonic highways.
And it's been generation after generation
of musicians that have put us here today.